Prevention and early intervention to improve child wellbeing

Improving child psychosocial outcomes through evidence-based prevention and early intervention
primary care/ primary education getty
This area of work is about how to improve child psychosocial outcomes through evidence-based prevention and early intervention, with an emphasis on developing or adapting interventions and evaluating their effectiveness and implementation. It makes use of a variety of methods, such as evidence reviews, mixed methods randomised controlled trials, process evaluations and rapid cycle testing, and spans a range of subject areas, including anti-social behaviour, bullying, child maltreatment, early childhood development and social-emotional learning. A particular interest is how to achieve impact at scale, hence the focus on (1) innovations in how interventions are developed are tested and (2) knowledge mobilisation.

Live projects

INTEGRATED: Integrated Parenting and Financial Well-being Support – examining whether combining financial well-being support with parenting support can improve children’s health and development.
Children’s Health and Maternity Programme – a national programme of work to improve health outcomes in childhood and maternal health across the country, including a cross-project evaluation of implementation support.
Strengthening partnerships through research to tackle male violence against women and girls in Plymouth – this project aims to understand what is important for reducing and preventing Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) in Plymouth.
Dental care for looked after children and adolescents: evidence synthesis and qualitative exploration – a mixed methods investigation of the oral health behaviours, dental experience and access to dental care of children and adolescents in care, and how to improve them.

Completed projects

Review of Evidence on Implementation in Education – integrating the best available international research evidence with insights on current implementation practices in schools in England to inform an update to the Education Endowment Foundation guidance report, ‘Putting Evidence to Work: A School’s Guide to Implementation’.
Looked After Children Transition Hub – a feasibility study and pilot outcomes evaluation of an educational support intervention for young people in care who move placement or school.
Becoming a Man – a feasibility study and pilot outcomes evaluation of a group-based mentoring intervention for adolescent boys to prevent youth violence and promote educational outcomes.
Income Maximisation for Families – evaluating how best to engage parents in an income maximisation service, and the potential for improving parent-child relations and child health and wellbeing.
ADAPT – the rapid cycle testing of adaptations to the evidence-based Family Nurse Partnership home visiting programme for young mothers.
Adapting the Chance UK Mentoring programme – the co-design and rapid cycle testing of adaptations to a mentoring programme for children with behavioural and emotional difficulties.
Early Learning Communities – the development of an evidence-based toolkit to guide system change in disadvantaged communities and thereby promote the early learning of children in poverty.
Working with parents to support children’s learning – the development of evidence-based guidance for early years settings and schools on how they can best support parents’ engagement in their children’s learning.
COVID-19 Learning Partnership – working with Youth Endowment Fund grantees to understand the impact of COVID-19 on young people at risk of being drawn into violent crime and the most effective approaches to engaging with vulnerable young people during the pandemic.

Publications

2025
2024
2023
2022
2021

2020
2019
2018